Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In the time remaining, I'd like to make this point to the House: next to the immediate cost-of-living pressures facing this nation, there is no more pressing issue in this country than housing affordability. It is not just an issue that is discussed by young people, despairing at the lack of opportunities available to them to buy a home of their own; it's being discussed by parents and grandparents, who may own their own home—some may own more than one—and who acknowledge and despair that it has never been harder.

I remember how hard it was for my parents to buy their first home when we migrated here from Ireland. I remember the interest rates were 17 per cent for a brief period of time and the consequences that that had for our family. I've spoken to my father—he didn't go to university, and my mother didn't—and there is no way that my family now, in these circumstances, in 2024, would be able to buy a home in Melbourne. There is no way. When we look at the median wage for a household of two people and we look at the median house price in 354 suburbs in Melbourne—we're not talking about a fancy house; we're talking about 600 or 700 squares, a brick house built in the 1950s—people like my parents wouldn't be able to afford to buy in any suburb in Melbourne, even assuming they could save the 20 per cent deposit, which we know would take 17 years. We have a serious problem in this country with housing affordability.

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